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INDEPENDENCE[1]
My life more civil is and free
Than any civil polity.
Ye princes, keep your realms
And circumscribèd power,
Not wide as are my dreams,
Nor rich as is this hour.
What can ye give which I have not?
What can ye take which I have got?
Can ye defend the dangerless?
Can ye inherit nakedness?
- ↑ First printed in full in the Boston Commonwealth, October 30, 1863. The last fourteen lines had appeared in the Dial under the title of 'The Black Knight,' and are so reprinted in the Riverside Edition.
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